Morlog misses football camaraderie

For a long time, Murray Morlog was a familiar face on football fields across Ontario.

The 65-year-old Port Colborne native, who moved to Fort Erie with his family when he was 10, officiated more than 100 football games a year at the minor, high school and Ontario University Athletics level.

Retired from the Niagara Regional Police Force for more than a decade, Morlog had no plans to stop officiating football.

But one morning, he woke up and couldn’t see out of the bottom half of his right eye.

“I went to my optometrist who sent me to an ophthalmologist who sent me to a surgeon and within two days they operated on my eye. I had a detached retina.”

The surgery wasn’t a success and Morlog can only see shapes and shadows with his right eye.

“My left eye is 20/20 vision and my right eye is 20/200 so yeah it’s virtually useless to me.”

He knew that his officiating career was likely over and that realization hit home — no pun intended — when he was helping out at a Fort Erie practice and got hit in the right side of his head by a football he never saw coming.

“That was it,” he said. “I knew I was done.”

Knowing his officiating career was over was a bitter pill to swallow.

“The toughest part about giving it up was just being out there with the kids and the camaraderie we have with the other officials, you guys (media), the coaches and everyone else,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun and you certainly don’t do it for the money. With the travel and stuff like that, it’s not very lucrative. It’s not like volleyball or basketball where you’re doing hundreds of games a year.”

He started officiating football in 1999 with the advent of Niagara minor football.

“John Fairgrieve was the convenor for Fort Erie and he called me and said they were looking for volunteers and was wondering if I was interested because he knew of my high school football background.”

Morlog had played high school football and junior B hockey in Fort Erie — he was good enough to be offered a football/hockey scholarship at Cornell — and coached high school football for 14 years in Port Colborne with Gino Arcaro and in Fort Erie with Calvin Nigh.

After taking a Level 1 referees course, Morlog started officiating minor football that summer and high school later that fall. Four years later, he was named to the Ontario University Athletics football panel and ended up officiating at the university level for 13 years. He reffed 60-70 games in his university career, including playoff games.

“I liked the camaraderie, being out there with the kids and coaches and just trying to put a positive spin on what people believe officials should be,” he said. “A lot of people blame officials for calls and stuff but we are not out there to mess up the game. In fact, if we don’t do anything in a game, that’s a good game.”

Morlog developed a reputation as a good official.

“I’ve had coaches at all levels who said they liked me because they knew what they were going to get out of me in a game,” he said. “They knew there wasn’t going to be a cheap call but they also knew I would make the difficult calls.”

In his police career, Morlog worked three years in uniform in Welland, was in the detective office in Port Colborne and did stints with the intelligence branch, narcotics, marine dive unit and recruitment. That background helped with his officiating.

“I think part of my ability on the field was also part of my ability to deal with people as a police officer,” he said. “I was fair but firm.”

Like all sports pre- and post-pandemic, football is dealing with a shortage of officials and Morlog does his part by encouraging high school and university players to become officials.

“They are hurting for officiating in every sport and elderly guys like myself, after sitting out for two year because of COVID, it’s hard to get back at it,” he said. “They are relying now on older guys and we need to recruit and get younger guys into it.”

Morlog has continued to stay involved in football. For the past two seasons, he has manned the clock at Greater Fort Erie Gryphons’ home games. He also helped GFESS head coach Dave Sauer in preseason by explaining holding calls to defensive players and what officials look for on the field.

“So many coaches at all levels don’t know the rules that well.”

This fall, Morlog’s former officiating colleagues presented him with a framed officiating jersey. He still has former players coming up to him and complimenting him on his work and how he communicated his calls to them.

“It not’s just going out there and doing the game,” he said. “It’s being out there and helping as much as we can.”